As advised by the Dong-A Ilbo, the Grand National Party has apparently asked the government to reconsider a plan, worked out by the Roh administration, to take back wartime operational command from the Americans in 2012.
They also want the Americans to concretely execute their policy of including Korea under their nuclear umbrella. What that means, exactly, I don’t really know, but expect LMB to ask Obama in their upcoming summit.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
This “transfer of command” bullshit is as dangerous as the NK’s Nuke.
The nut-case known as President Rho insisted that SK must have the wartime command.
Why should SK have the wartime command? Why? SK generals are better than the US generals? Do SK generals know about the US capability and how to use them properly in the wartime situation?
Fucking -A!!!
Rho was fucked up. He had no idea how to protect SK. He was just burned with nationalism, not thinking about the practicality of what he was saying.
Just plain stupid.
And, everyone in the Korean military knows that when a war breaks out the US troops will do their own thing and SK troops will do the same. Koreans troops will be led by Korean Defense ministry and the US troops will be led by Eighth Army command or AirForce command depending on the type of service.
There is even no reason to discuss “wartime command”. There is no such thing anyway. Just a pink elephant.
Rho wanted to piss off the US by clearly requesting that the US troops to fight under Korean generals.
Fucking-A!!!
It probably means two things: (i) a public statement that attack on the Republic of Korea by an enemy would result in nuclear retaliatory strikes by the United States; and (ii) a return of American strategic and tactical nuclear weapons to bases in the Republic of Korea. I think both are ideologically very difficult for the new Socialist regime in the United States.
Take back war-time operational control? NO NO NO NO NO. The Yanks need to get the heck OUT of here. If there is an armed conflict, NK and China have a mutual defense agreement. The US cannot go up against China at this time and win. The ONLY thing I found good about Noh was that he did push for the removal of the Yanks, even if I didn’t like the way he did it.
Brendon, I’d be very suprised if they managed to get either (i) or (ii), even if they did wait for a non-Socialist regime in the United States, for practical reasons as well as ideological.
The Chinese have 3 main concerns;
1. US forces at the Chinese NE border
2. hundreds of thousand of NK refugees (including armed militia from the collapsed NK regime) flooding into China
3. the nuclear weapons and facilities falling into unknown hands which may be smuggled across the Chinese border.
If SK and the US can guarantee the removal of US forces after re-unification, that would address concern number 1.
I honestly do not care what China’s concerns are. My brother and my son put time into being soldiers in S Korea. I either have to pretend to be Canadian or risk being spat at AGAIN. This country can afford to defend itself. The troops need to leave. S. Korea needs to take care of itself. That simple.
S. Korea needs to take care of itself. That simple.
I think it would be better to have South Korean help in fighting Chinese troops than to be fighting South Korean troops conscripted by China after the Chinese make South Korea a semi-autonomous region of China (like Tibet). It would be also be preferable to fight the Chinese in Korea than in Hawaii.
The historical record shows that China does have periods of relative territorial quiescence – in times of military weakness (in which the Chicoms fought border wars with India, Russia, Vietnam, while conducting walkovers with respect to the Southeast Asian countries). Unfortunately, China’s period of military weakness is coming to an end.
I think it would be preferable to fight the Chinese in Hawaii rather than in Korea. Firstly, I don’t live in Hawaii. Secondly, the Chinese supply lines would be longer to Hawaii and the US supply lines conversely shorter. In Hawaii the US’s relative naval strength would also have a stronger bearing on the outcome. And the US forces could count on quite a lot of support amongst the local population. In fact, the best place to fight the Chinese would be somewhere like Central California and use the Sierra Nevada as a natural fortification.
Sorry, eventually you get sucked into all the craziness. In international affairs as much as online.
#1
I will repeat what Benjamin Franklin said, which is a universal truth: those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The Grand National Party’s request is one borne of short-term expediency but long-term foolishness. This attitude expressed by Baduk in #1, common to many Korean “conservatives”, is akin to that of the child who refuses to grow up into maturity by leaving the comfort and safety of his mother’s skirt.
Korea adamantly needs to pursue self-determination in national defense. It is a matter of both principle and pragmatism. The transfer of war-time command is just one step in that process. A nation that relies on a foreign power for military defense is essentially a protectorate of that power, a willing compromise of its national sovereignty.
Korea cannot rely on US military support as a matter of policy indefinitely. Unlike in the past, Korea is now in a position to develop independent capabilities and should proceed to do so as a matter of doctrine. Continual dependence upon US forces breeds neglect of such development and that is dangerous for the current age. It is dangerous because the US military is stretched far too thin, her economic and industrial might beset by myriad troubles – America is an Empire on the wane ala the British Empire circa early 1900′s. In the not so distant future, the US will withdraw whether Korea wants it or not and this will leave Korea totally unprepared if Koreans continue to depend on US protection as if it is a given. It is not. The time to start preparing for that eventuality is NOW.
Net.Kim-I totally agree. Korea has long passed the time where it needed to put real effort into its own self-defense. Continuing to rely on the US if foolhardy, and the US continuing to allow this dependency is even more foolhardy. Time to kick the chick out of the nest.
Korea has long passed the time where it needed to put real effort into its own self-defense.
Absolutely. And if China were around the same size – population-wise – as South Korea, these efforts might actually have some kind of effect. The fact is that China has 20 times Korea’s population, hundreds of nukes and stands on the verge of annexing North Korea. Meanwhile, budget-wise, South Korea is the American ally with the second most capable military in East Asia (apart from Japan). If Uncle Sam is not going to work with South Korea to deter Chinese territorial ambitions, who is he going to ally with? The US won’t necessarily be able to count on the Koreans to help us in out-of-area conflicts. But if the Chinese do follow their long history of territorial aggrandizement, it is better to deal with them earlier while they’re waking up expats in Korea like eujin with ballistic missile attacks rather than while a Chinese carrier fleet is paying Pearl Harbor a surprise visit.
Perhaps you missed the memo, but S Korea is NOT a reliable ally. The past decade of pro-NK propaganda by the KDJ and NMH administrations has taught an entire generation that the real enemy is the US. Should push come to shove, the US would find themselves in the same situation they had in Vietnam, or for that matter, in the Korean War, where the enemy masqueraded the friend.
Defending S Korea is a no-win situation for the US. Time to cut our losses and fortify where we know we are amongst friends.
BC:
“Socialist regime”???
DLB
Zhang Fei
So is Vietnam which is much weaker than SK in terms of economy and military, a vassal of China? How about Laos?
SK is no walkover for the Chinese or even NK. Your paranoia about the Chinese is showing as usual
(ChiCom?? Anyone been to China knows that they are probably more capitalist than the US now!)
Interestingly guess where the NK got their nuclear technology?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-malloy/nukes-and-missiles-and-bo_b_208409.html
Perhaps you missed the memo, but S Korea is NOT a reliable ally.
South Korea is not a reliable out-of-area ally. But it will defend itself against Chinese invasion. And that’s all we need the USFK for – to work with the Koreans deny the Chinese complete control of the Korean peninsula.
So is Vietnam which is much weaker than SK in terms of economy and military, a vassal of China? How about Laos?
Several years ago, Vietnam ceded hundreds of square miles of disputed territory to China, despite intense anger domestically. Laos’s leaders are too busy trying to keep the economy to even dispute territorial issues. China will act when it’s good and ready, not when it’s convenient for us. Its economy isn’t ready to take the impact of economic embargoes that will surely fall on it if it embarks on territorial expansion.
SK is no walkover for the Chinese or even NK. Your paranoia about the Chinese is showing as usual
(ChiCom?? Anyone been to China knows that they are probably more capitalist than the US now!)
China’s defense budget is over $100b in PPP terms. That’s 5 times Korea’s. In ten years, it will be a walkover. As to China being more capitalist, that’s not going to happen anytime soon – the Chicom elites need the super-majority holdings the Party has in more than 2/3 of the Shanghai exchange’s largest companies in order to have some place to employ their relatives and friends. The Chinese government doesn’t need to urge Chinese banks to make bad loans – it has always owned the banks (which are infested, like other state-owned institutions, with the children of the leadership) and has been making them issue bad loans for decades.
Zhang Fei
Even if China’s defense budget is 5 times SK, China has a long border with a whole host of nations. To put even one fifth of her armed forces head to head with SK will be stretching it and not forgeting that the quality of force mulitiplers that SK armed forces enjoy. As for invading NK, probably “altrustic” China wants to take care of even more poor people. I think the Chinese will say thanks but no thanks LOL
I agree that SOEs including Chinese banks are hotbeds of corruption. Then we don’t have much to worry about when they are so inefficient. You can see the financial collapse in the US has weaken the US’s resolve in getting into more foreign adventures, so it will be the same for the Chinese.
I would be worried about Japan instead, they have been itching to get their military some fun. And they actually do have the best equipment and best trained forces in Asia.
Except for the majority of SK/ NK people, no one else wants a reunified Korea. They may pay lip service to the idea but …
The US wants to stay in SK, forward bases …
China, US forces up against their NE border…
The SK government, financial burden …
The NK government, trials and hangings for most of the leaders…
Japan, a reunified Korea will better positioned to compete against Japan and potentially a hostile military force to be reckoned.
Aren’t Japan already facing off against a hostile military force? The average Japanese person would sigh a big sigh of relief if North Korea disappeared. They might even contribute to rebuilding – they will almost certainly contribute if asked.
How would the US keep bases on China’s NE border? Would the American people accept that? It’s going to take a lot of work to convince the American people of the need for long-term stationing of American forces on China’s border, just to stop China taking over the world. Not that I doubt it can be done.
Well, there are US forward bases in eastern Europe to “stop the Russians from taking over the world”. American people like people everywhere are sheep to politican pigs (Animal Farm).
Chinese military might is the boogeyman the US military use to justify spending obsence anount of $$$. The current Chinese navy has very few blue ocean surface ships and their strategy relies on the Russian made Kilos subs for asymmetric warfare against a much superior US opponent. It will take at least 15-25 years for the Chinese to match current US & Japanese forces in the Pacific.
They have +200 nuclear warheads v. US of about 10,000, and fairly obsolete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_China
Not the posture of an aggressive rising military power.
According to this link, there are actually more US military personnel in Russia than most countries in Eastern Europe. While stationing them in Russia is probably the best place to put them to stop the Russians from taking over the world, I suspect their main job there is to protect US diplomatic resources (cos there’s only 74 of them and they’re mostly marines). The main job of the guys that are still in Europe is to support the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are people round here who know way more than I do about what the US is doing with its military, but it’s worth noting that both the 1st ID and 1st Armored Division are scheduled to be relocated from Germany back to the US in the next few years. The USAF bases that I knew as a kid are now closed and currently being used as massive parking lots.
Less large bases and more forward bases … http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/eucom.htm
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56391
Russia’s soft underbelly, Central Asia, the oil and of course … the terrorists too.
http://www.politicalblog.us/PoliticalBlog/post-comments.cfm?PostID=58
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